Maybe I'll review the album too, my standpoint on it is somewhere in between the negatives (represented by Nightgaunt alone) and the positives (represented by a total of nine fanboys). I don't find it very sophisticated and I have trouble finding the "art", but I think its a very catchy and headbangy album to put on when one is in a good mood.

I gotta say this is one of the best reviews i found in this site so far:

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my Harnessing Ruin review

I really don't like that one at all. It's been edited too damn many times, which causes it to loses focus, which leads to a horrible, barely-readable clusterfuck of a review. Were I a mod, I'd probably reject it.

Really, if you want what are in my opinion my best reviews, check out my negative ones that always were negative (my Velvet Cacoon and Xasthur ones in particular).

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Cheeses Priced wrote:

People would rather their money on their own property than forking it over to starving kids in Africa... I guess the solution is to allow people to buy and own Africans.

Maybe I'll review the album too, my standpoint on it is somewhere in between the negatives (represented by Nightgaunt alone) and the positives (represented by a total of nine fanboys). I don't find it very sophisticated and I have trouble finding the "art", but I think its a very catchy and headbangy album to put on when one is in a good mood.

I am kind of inbetween to. Emperor does have an immense power with the guitars and keyboards which is a qaulity in their music I can trace back to their demos. The mixing however does damage the album quite a bit. I think the last song is my favourite

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taleskiss on Kiss wrote:

They influenced MOST of the metal bands of our days, and they are not part of this site? This is unacceptable!!!I would like to know why is that???Because they are not considered metal? This is not fare!!!

How DO you customize fonts in your reviews anyway? This was like planned to be the grand premier for Bloodstone starting to use italics in his reviews and look what happens. And I thought those programming lessons in school would actually pay off at some point.

EDIT: I originally quoted that as "<b>faulty mark-ups.</b>", now that's irony.

I had almost completely forgotten about Drifter - thanks to OSS and his grand review they are now refreshed in my memory.

_________________"Who's this again?" my brother asks as his exceptional jeep stereo explodes with sound. "Lair of the Minotaur!", I say loudly."Glare of the Minotaur?" "No, Lair...but that's a pretty damn good name too!".

_________________"Who's this again?" my brother asks as his exceptional jeep stereo explodes with sound. "Lair of the Minotaur!", I say loudly."Glare of the Minotaur?" "No, Lair...but that's a pretty damn good name too!".

I think cheesespriced reviews are the best on the board...osheaman, requiem99, and ultraboris come in second place. And Falconsbane comes in shitty last. I sure do hate pretentious reviewers more than the retarted ones. Cheers!

I think cheesespriced reviews are the best on the board...osheaman, requiem99, and ultraboris come in second place. And Falconsbane comes in shitty last. I sure do hate pretentious reviewers more than the retarted ones. Cheers!

I'll take that as a huge compliment from the sort of Jewboy gimp who can't even spell his own insults.

He pretty much reviewed a speed/thrash metal album by black metal standards, along the lines of something like Abigor. Rust In Peace is about riffs and solos, not intellectual property. There are other albums for that, and none of them are by Megadeth.

Eloquent, literate... empty. There's no justification for his opinions, which are even more so than other reviewers, completely subjective in this case. He raises good points about the production that can be argued, but musically I just don't see anything resembling reason here. That he can feel more intellectual and spiritual resonance in a synth-loop from a Burzum album than in a speed metal classic is fantastic, but I suspect that he prefers his music to be something he can impose his own view upon. The more sparse and cold and murky a record is, the less talked about it is, the easier it is to find some sort of artistry in that may or may not be intended by the author.

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hells_unicorn wrote:

His [OSS] reviewing style sucks in my opinion, [...] and his humor is vapid at best and outright buffoonish at worst.

Meh, I thought it raised a few good points. It articulated a few things that I had been thinking, but wasn't able to really word it.

I agree. I wouldn't score it as low as he did, but I found his observation that it's like a sort of deep-fried speed metal sampler platter to be quite apt.

_________________The bizarre lattices were all around. Sticks and bits of board nailed together in fantastic array. It should've been ridiculous. Instead it seemed oddly sinister--these inexplicable lattices spread through a wilderness bearing little evidence that man had ever passed through...

Eloquent, literate... empty. There's no justification for his opinions, which are even more so than other reviewers, completely subjective in this case. He raises good points about the production that can be argued, but musically I just don't see anything resembling reason here. That he can feel more intellectual and spiritual resonance in a synth-loop from a Burzum album than in a speed metal classic is fantastic, but I suspect that he prefers his music to be something he can impose his own view upon. The more sparse and cold and murky a record is, the less talked about it is, the easier it is to find some sort of artistry in that may or may not be intended by the author.

I'm a bit confused on this one, my criticisms of Rust in Peace are all pretty concrete. Half the songs involve nearly direct quotations from other bands, and most of the rest closely approximate existing works.

Meh, I thought it raised a few good points. It articulated a few things that I had been thinking, but wasn't able to really word it.

I agree. I wouldn't score it as low as he did, but I found his observation that it's like a sort of deep-fried speed metal sampler platter to be quite apt.

Same here. I thought it was overrated though I would probably give it in the 60s or 70s range as it is still relatively enjoyable.

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taleskiss on Kiss wrote:

They influenced MOST of the metal bands of our days, and they are not part of this site? This is unacceptable!!!I would like to know why is that???Because they are not considered metal? This is not fare!!!

Falconsbane's Rust in Peace review is a good one. I even find myself nodding in agreement with some of it.

While Rust in Peace is indeed a rather dull and forgettable album with a couple of enjoyable songs, I think Falco comes across in that review as the musical equivalent of an art school student who denounces realist painters like Andrew Wyeth and Yuqi Wang for being "too unoriginal" while admiring hacks like Mark Rothko, Asger Jorn and others who use innovation as an excuse for laziness.

Falconsbane's Rust in Peace review is a good one. I even find myself nodding in agreement with some of it.

While Rust in Peace is indeed a rather dull and forgettable album with a couple of enjoyable songs, I think Falco comes across in that review as the musical equivalent of an art school student who denounces realist painters like Andrew Wyeth and Yuqi Wang for being "too unoriginal" while admiring hacks like Mark Rothko, Asger Jorn and others who use innovation as an excuse for laziness.

How so? The bands I praise are uniformly more considered, more carefully crafted and more conceptually complex than Megadeth. Unless you're defining "laziness" as anything less than technical virtuosity, which, to my thinking, is intellectual "laziness" of the worst sort since it's the sort of judgment one can make with the most cursory of analyis.

How so? The bands I praise are uniformly more considered, more carefully crafted and more conceptually complex than Megadeth.

That is a valid point. However, aesthetic derivativeness is on its own not a sufficient central point of negative criticism, nor is it in any way identical to a failure to engage the audience.

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Unless you're defining "laziness" as anything less than technical virtuosity, which, to my thinking, is intellectual "laziness" of the worst sort since it's the sort of judgment one can make with the most cursory of analyis.

When you apply Occam's Razor, a lot of "stylistic innovations" in both music and the visual arts turn out to be appear as excuses for laziness and ineptitude (eg. the Fauvists' abandonment of perspective and a lot of "minimalist Black Metal").

That is a valid point. However, aesthetic derivativeness is on its own not a sufficient central point of negative criticism, nor is it in any way identical to a failure to engage the audience.

I disagree, inasmuch as aesthetics are the vehicle for content, a lack of an independent aesthetic voice is an announcement that an independent artistic voice is lacking.

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When you apply Occam's Razor, a lot of "stylistic innovations" in both music and the visual arts turn out to be appear as excuses for laziness and ineptitude (eg. the Fauvists' abandonment of perspective and a lot of "minimalist Black Metal").

I'd caution against applying Occam's Razor to human behaviour as, practically speaking, the 'simple' answer is rarely the actual answer. Human behaviour is simply too complex and involves too many variables for there to really be a 'simple' answer. In the case of most "minimalist black metal," however, there is a distinct lack of independence, stylistically or otherwise, so 'laziness' is certainly likely to be applicable (along with 'no original thoughts,' 'just wants social validation' and 'has no talent').